He was the first newscaster I remember watching upon my arrival in the U.S as a nine-year-old (I wouldn't become a regular Peter Jennings watcher - ABC's "World News Tonight" featured Jennings then as part of a three-anchor format - till after Cronkite left the CBS anchor chair). I also remember that my dad, who molded my news-junkiness, was a Cronkite fan and I have vivid memories of watching "Uncle Walter" with him.

As soon as I heard he'd died, I posted a note about watching him with my dad on Facebook and Twitter and two Indian friends said that they, too, thought of their own fathers when they heard the news.

Long-time SAJA member, Lavina Melwani (whose new blog is Lassi With Lavina), wrote on my FB wall about another aspect of Cronkite's TV work:

In
our home, watching the Vienna Philharmonic's annual New Year's Day
concert hosted by Walter Cronkite on PBS had become a tradition. And
that's the way it was.

During his run as host of the "CBS Evening News" from 1962 to 1981, many historic events took place in
South Asia and he told millions of Americans about those events. A quick search of the Vanderbilt University Television Archive shows abstracts from hundreds of such stories. Click through the listings here to read some of the abstracts. Some of the stories were just short items, such as this 40-second report in June 1974:

Some other random stuff includes a 2006 video of Cronkite endorsing the work of The Smile Train, the cleft-palate charity that does major work in India, China and elsewhere. The same organization produced the documentary, "Smile Pinki" (the OTHER India-based film about poor kids that won an Oscar in 2009):

Here's an amusing story about Cronkite's rather intimate encounter with the most famous Indian woman of her time, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, excerpted from his autobiography, "A Reporter's Life":

What other Desi connections did we miss? Post your thoughts below. ALSO: Does anyone know if he ever visited South Asia? Are there any photos of him there?

He was the first newscaster I remember watching upon my arrival in the U.S as a nine-year-old (I wouldn't become a regular Peter Jennings watcher - ABC's "World News Tonight" featured Jennings then as part of a three-anchor format - till after Cronkite left the CBS anchor chair). I also remember that my dad, who molded my news-junkiness, was a Cronkite fan and I have vivid memories of watching "Uncle Walter" with him.

As soon as I heard he'd died, I posted a note about watching him with my dad on Facebook and Twitter and two Indian friends said that they, too, thought of their own fathers when they heard the news.

Long-time SAJA member, Lavina Melwani (whose new blog is Lassi With Lavina), wrote on my FB wall about another aspect of Cronkite's TV work:

In
our home, watching the Vienna Philharmonic's annual New Year's Day
concert hosted by Walter Cronkite on PBS had become a tradition. And
that's the way it was.

During his run as host of the "CBS Evening News" from 1962 to 1981, many historic events took place in
South Asia and he told millions of Americans about those events. A quick search of the Vanderbilt University Television Archive shows abstracts from hundreds of such stories. Click through the listings here to read some of the abstracts. Some of the stories were just short items, such as this 40-second report in June 1974: